By Jim Dower: Joseph ‘Jo Jo’ Diaz Jr. (27-1, 14 KOs) won a close 12 round unanimous decision victory over World Boxing Association secondary featherweight champion Jesus M Rojas (26-2-2, 19 KOs) on Saturday night at The Avalon in Hollywood, California. The judges scored it 116-112, 115-113 and 117-111. Boxing News 24 had it scored a draw at 114-114.
The 117-111 score was disturbing. That score made absolutely no sense at all. Giving the win to Diaz is fine, but that score was way off from the fight that took place. Diaz did not win 9 rounds to 3. The judge giving him the victory by that score made himself look bad in the process. At the very most, 115-113 for Diaz is as good as you can call it. Anything more than that is taking credit away from Rojas, who did a lot of damage to the Golden Boy star.
A rematch would be a good idea for Diaz Jr. and Rojas in order to erase the controversy behind tonight’s fight, but that’s probably not going to happen. If Diaz Jr. does stay at featherweight, he’ll likely be positioned by Golden Boy Promotions for a third straight title shot rather than facing Rojas a second time. There’s a chance that Diaz Jr. might move up if he and his promoters at Golden Boy see a future for him in that weight class. Diaz Jr. didn’t fight well tonight, and he didn’t look good in his previous fight either against Gary Russell Jr.
Despite winning the fight, Diaz Jr. didn’t get the victory, as he missed weight so Rojas’ WBA ‘regular’ featherweight title wasn’t available for him to win. Instead, the WBA title is now vacant and available to be fought over by the highest available contenders in the World Boxing Association’s rankings.
Diaz landed a lot of shots, but he had lost power on his punches in the second half and just throwing arm punches. A lot of the action was fought on the inside with both guys landing well. Rojas had more punching power on his punches. In the 10th, Rojas landed a shot on the back of Diaz that led to him receiving a warning.
Tonight’s Diaz Jr. vs. Rojas fight was streamed on Golden Boy Fight Night live on Facebook.
Diaz Jr. was bloodied around the mouth, and beaten up looking by the end of the fight. The referee allowed Diaz Jr. to get away with a lot of head-butts and headlocks. The head-butts should have led to some kind of a point deduction against Diaz Jr., as it looked intentional at times. Diaz Jr. was obviously tired in the last three rounds, and he looked like he was trying anything he could to get the victory.
The fight could have been scored a 12 round draw or a victory for the 31-year-old Rojas and there would have been no arguments. It looked like Rojas did enough to deserve a draw out of the fight against the overweight Diaz Jr., who had come in over the weigh-in limit last Friday after weighing in at 126 ½ pounds.
It’s believed that Diaz Jr. might move up in weight to super featherweight. After tonight’s performance from Diaz, he might want to try and stay at 126 for as long as possible. Diaz Jr. doesn’t possess the punching power to mix it up with the top super featherweights in the division. If Diaz Jr. moves up to 130, he’ll find himself mixing it up with the likes of Miguel Berchelt, Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis, Alberto Machado, Tevin Farmer and Masayuki Ito. I don’t think Diaz Jr. can beat any of those fighters.
Golden Boy Promotions would need to be strategic in who they match Diaz Jr. against for him to have a chance of winning a world title at super featherweight. Diaz’s best bet is to go after the WBA Super World super featherweight title held Gervonta once he vacates the belt and moves up to lightweight. Diaz Jr. is not cut out to be a world champion at super featherweight or lightweight in my estimation. He’s more of a contender level fighter, but not a champion. At featherweight, he would have won the title tonight if he was able to make weight last Friday. The fact that Diaz Jr. can’t make weight at 126 suggests that it’s time for him to move up. Diaz Jr. is 25-years-old and he’s been fighting at featherweight since 2015. It’s obviously time for him to move up to super featherweight.
In Diaz’s previous fight, he was beaten by WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. by a 12 round unanimous decision last May. It was no accident that Diaz Jr. lost to Russell Jr. He was outclassed by him.
In other boxing results on the card, lightweight prospect Jonathan Navarro (15-0, 8 KOs) defeated Damon Allen (15-1-1, 5 KOs) by a 7th round knockout. Referee Zac Young stopped the contest at 1:33 of round 7.